To burn special waste in special waste furnace systems, which is delivered in containers, in particular in barrels of sheet metal or plastic, two methods have up to now been mainly used. The barrels are in the first method unshredded and moved by gripping means into a furnace, which is mostly designed as a rotary furnace and are there burnt together with their contents at high temperatures. This, however, results in intermittent variations in the combustion temperature, the exhaust gas amounts and the concentration of damaging substances in the exhaust gas so that the capacity of the system must be designed higher than for a continuous supply of special wastes. The filled containers, which due to their contamination with the special waste contained therein must also be burnt, are in a second method preshredded in a shredder. The scrap metal and other solids are separated in a drummed revolving screen from the special waste, which exists mostly in the form of a pasty or pulplike thick matter, before both fractions are subsequently continuously fed to the combustion furnace. Such a method, however, requires devices both for feeding the thick matter and also for feeding the solids into the combustion furnace.
Moreover, when the special waste and containers are burnt together, waste consisting of rusty melted sheet-metal or iron parts accumulates, which waste exists mainly in small pieces or in granular form, and, which should be burnt again because of its residual heating value and in order to reduce the amount of combustion residues.
Starting out from this the basic purpose of the invention is to develop a method and a device of the above-mentioned type, which enable an essentially continuous conveying of thick matter containing preshredded scrap metal or similar solids.